Seeing what's been done to 6th edition 40k and my personal dislike and disdain for the improperly implemented Allies rules, I was wondering how GW could mess up the upcoming 9th edition Fantasy rules set for others. 40K has become quite stratified currently with how people want to play it. Do you opt for a standard 40k ( which has a wide variation in meaning right now) , do you want to play an all out apocalypse game, or a game using the newly introduced escalation rules where your opponent is going to beat your face in if he brings a titan and you have nothing to deal with it. Finally you throw in the whole Forgeworld fiasco question.

For me it would be Allies if it was in implemented as poorly as it was done in 40k. Allies can work but not how it is presently. Its led to all sorts of Cheese Combos usually because in 40k if you have an Allied character with a special rule most often that special rule grants the special rule to the WHOLE UNIT that it is in. ie a fearless character grants it to everybody, Stealth, shrouded, tank hunters the list goes on and on.

The whole Allies chart is a Whole different story with who can ally with who..

I really love the state fantasy is in right now. Please GW don't make it like 40K...

What do you have to say?

- Making every army require no strategy at all and just resort to only one way to play them.
- Removing what looks like a rather good balance between the armies.
- Putting a heavy emphasis on shooting instead of melee (ex. Black powder cannons firing overwatch).
- Making most of the good units available at forgeworld only.

Book reset.

Just going over-the-top. Making stuff more powerful. If anything I would like to see things get weaker. That way you can have more soft counters than hard counters. Like they way anything can kill anything else.

40K had such a crazy power creep. If all spells kind of morphed into buffs and hexes, it would put the emphasis back on troops who are just carriers for them. And find a way to curtail megastar units.

I'd like to see monsters get a bit better still. Like large target = immune to multi wounds. Or half. Or whatever.

More ability to play really small games without the universe falling apart. That will bring in new players. 250pt games. This hobby isn't cheap.

As duke said would love monsters to get better in terms if survivability. Would make combat lords a little more viable rather than the mandatory lvl 4 mage.
Test-or-die spells need to become less common. The answer to handling death stars and tarpit hordes/buses should involve more tactical nous in the form of flank/rear charges rather than 6 dicing spells and deleting units in one hit.
The point on smaller games is a really good one! Release rules for small skirmish type games and try and introduce more people into the game.
@thedarkavenger, when you say 'book reset' what are you referring to exactly?

alex87 wrote:
As duke said would love monsters to get better in terms if survivability. Would make combat lords a little more viable rather than the mandatory lvl 4 mage.
Test-or-die spells need to become less common. The answer to handling death stars and tarpit hordes/buses should involve more tactical nous in the form of flank/rear charges rather than 6 dicing spells and deleting units in one hit.
The point on smaller games is a really good one! Release rules for small skirmish type games and try and introduce more people into the game.
@thedarkavenger, when you say 'book reset' what are you referring to exactly?

I'm referring to them making all the existing army books invalid by completely changing the game. GW has done it in the past if memory serves.

I love the balance of the game right now, and actually love that big monsters and lords have to actually fear something in this edition of the game. So many previous versions of fantasy have been dubbed Herohammer for a reason, and it's nice to see more emphasis put on the footslogging soldiers. A shift back towards Hero/monsterhammer would ruin it for me.

Dumb allies mechanics would also ruin it for me. Rules similar to older editions allowing 25% taken in allies along the lines of forces of order and destruction would suit me. I hate seeing 40k lists where the supposed "main army" is outnumbered in points by the allied army. I've found some of the triumph and treachery rules requiring a captain and -1ld penalty to the allied army quite solid. It's also limited rare monster spam due to the captain tax.

If there are any improvements they could make, it's allowing rear and flank charges to deny steadfast. I also think cavalry could be balanced and more viable by simply giving them impact hits. If 4 ogres going 6" can get up to 12 impact hits when charging, a blob of knights with lances charging in at full speed should do some impact hits as well.

Overall though I hope GW realizes this version of the game is solid and they shouldn't have to do too much tweaking. I think they know this considering how good of a job they have done dialing back certain armies like DE, VC, and DoC. All still solid, but not 100% cheese.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

I'm referring to them making all the existing army books invalid by completely changing the game. GW has done it in the past if memory serves.

Happened exactly twice for WFB &40K. For WFB, the cognate of army books (Lost & Damned and Slaves to Darkness) went away with 4th Ed, and all the books were dropped with the transition to 6th. 40K had army lists invalidated for both 2nd and 3rd editions. I doubt they do that again for either game, since it would require work to be done on armies that aren't having a new model release any time soon.

1. No 6th edition styled "total re-boot" please. While I'd love to get rid of the one dysfunctional army book and see the two obnoxiously game-breaking HE options go, overall GW has done a stand-up job with the army books and external balance this edition.

There's absolutely no reason to go and torch O&G's, TK's, VC's, Ogres, DE's, Empire, Lizzies and even WoC & HE's overall. (plus we're likely to add WE's, Dwarfs, Skaven and maybe even Brets to that list before 9th hits)
Just do the proper thing and put Beastmen in the first 1-3 books of 9th, and lock Ward up and have someone competent write the god damn DoC book for once! Then make HE's & WoC the 3rd/4th new books to reign in the sheer silliness of Alarielle/BotWD & DP/Chimera shenanigans.


2. Keeping Initiative based 'test or die' mega spells, AND, allowing all wizards to roll up to 6 dice per casting attempt.
With roughly half the game's armies being low initiative, P.Sun & Pit are just an unfair kick in the groin since the likes of Elves & Warriors get to happily ignore those spells with their deathstars.
It's also infuriating at the moment to easily abuse the above by giving those mega spells to a Lv1 or Lv2 wizard who's only purpose is to 6-dice their casting attempts until they blow themselves up for a 'huge reward, no risk' style auto-win.

Instead, remove the initiative stat from those killer spells and use S/T/WS/Ld instead, and having the number of casting dice per spell attempt equal to 'Wizard Level + 2'


3. Lazy implementation of Allies.
We know allies are almost certainly a shoe-in, but (hopefully) GW will show some common sense for once and not turn it into an instant buffet table of ludicrous combos for every single WaaC'er to salivate over and turn the game into a version of 'Yu-Gi-Oh!hammer gone wild'.
Last thing we need to see are things like a HE BSB w/BotWD BFF'ing it up with a horde of Ironguts toting their own BSB w/Runemaw, all supported by a Frostheart & Bolters.

Allies should allow for cool themes and to bring the rich background of the game to life. (like a true Chaotic Host composed of Warriors, Beastmen and/or Daemons, or the infamous 'Army of Slyvania' with Zombies & Skeletons marching alongside State Troops, all led by their Von Carstien master)
They should not be a way to create the ultimate power-gaming combo of the most nonsensical tag-teams under the sun.

I actually don't like allies. I never liked the mercenary concept because it makes balance vastly different, lists just became TFG festivals where it's nothing but the cheesiest units from every army with no fluff. At least you can have a reason for an army to have all it's units: it's the army book. Why dwarfs have empire cannons and a hellblaster in addition to their own cannons is because [mumble mumble] friends and [mumble].

riburn3 wrote:
If there are any improvements they could make, it's allowing rear and flank charges to deny steadfast. I also think cavalry could be balanced and more viable by simply giving them impact hits. If 4 ogres going 6" can get up to 12 impact hits when charging, a blob of knights with lances charging in at full speed should do some impact hits as well.

Ogres are super expensive compared to most cavalry. It was easy to give MI/MC/MB Stomp and Monsters TStomp because they are expensive. I can't see giving the cavalry unit type Impact Hits because they cover too much. I could see giving them furious charge or similar.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Then make HE's & WoC the 3rd/4th new books to reign in the sheer silliness of Alarielle/BotWD & DP/Chimera shenanigans.

Not going to happen, and you know it.
Your problems with these gimmicks can and (hopefully) will be addressed at BRB level, not army book level.
Agree that making Beastmen an early release should be a priority, will be interesting to see who else gets a new army book soon and what the two starter set armies will be. Fair chance one could be Space Marines...

I don't think allies will be as bad in WHFB as they will be in 40k.

Most of the broken allies configurations in 40k are a result of a character transferring his ability to a unit, and there are a lot less of those in WHFB (and the ones I can think of - Alarielle + something with MoT, for example - will most probably not be able to ally). I think it does largely depend on how spells work too. TauDar is so nasty because, well, Guided Tau. I guess some armies, OnG spring to mind, will be able to make use of other magic lores, but I can't instantly see how this would break the game.

The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

Abstract rules designed to sell more miniatures e.g. Horde.

I haven't posted in a while to these forums. I've been playing other games but have been considering a return to fantasy. I think allies would stop me dead in my tracks. I hated it in 40k, the loss of flavor that comes unique to an army. I know why they do it I just don't agree with it.

Allies, unless it was for armies for which it makes sense. (Which would just be Chaos, honestly... Give me my Hordes of Chaos...) The point of picking an army is to learn a force with a specific strategy and built-in weaknesses. By being able to include allies, it's both a cheap ploy to sell figures from outside factions and screws up balance.

Other than that, yeah, initiative based tests (make it toughness) and letting all wizards 6 dice stuff.

I miss double 1,1 miscasts, but that's just me.

 Cryonicleech wrote:

I miss double 1,1 miscasts, but that's just me.

Not just you. I really miss that dynamic of risk reward. Six dice felt desperate.

 Evertras wrote:

 Cryonicleech wrote:

I miss double 1,1 miscasts, but that's just me.

Not just you. I really miss that dynamic of risk reward. Six dice felt desperate.

Plus not many wizards could go above 5 at all with the "Wizard level +1 dice" limit which I also miss.

Not sure why they didn't keep it as I see a lot of people complain about the Level 1-2s 6 dicing with relatively no risk for the huge potential reward.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Book reset.

That and stuff like making magic even more stupid. Basically OP and random as h*ll.

-What magic needs is a combo of 7th and 8th version of magic. I think the idea of 1d6 generated and the each wizard generates dice based on levels is better. Right now magic is just too freaking random. Make 6 dice throws infinitely more painful to suffer from. The 6 dice rolls are stupid middle finger moves sometimes that can't be stopped regardless of how good you are. Suffering a stupid IF and torching half a unit from a spell is just dumb esp. if it allows no saves and goes through magic resistance.

Another bad thing would be to ruin the movement tactics horribly in favor of stupid killy death units. Making steadfast even stupider would help to ruin the game and I'm a skaven player.

Make the book favor a few armies way too hard and at times certain types of armies as well (elite, horde, melee, ranged, magic, high movement or cavalry armies). Somehow I feel like a whole army of ASF also getting re-rolls to hit as long as they were at least as high initiative as an opponent was a bit much. Not sure how I feel about stomps though sometimes thunder-stomps were nice.

I already said I don't like allies but other people do. But if you could include characters I think it would be impossible to balance. Magic lists and magic items available to those armies alone would 100% break balance.

As someone mentioned O&G with full lore access or Skaven or Ogres.

Hargus56 wrote:
I haven't posted in a while to these forums. I've been playing other games but have been considering a return to fantasy. I think allies would stop me dead in my tracks. I hated it in 40k, the loss of flavor that comes unique to an army. I know why they do it I just don't agree with it.

I agree whole heartedly. I hate what is currently happening to 40K (i dont want to play my chaos vs your Dark Eldar/Eldar/Tau Formation with Allied Inquisitor....you get the idea). I feel like GW are trying to push this into fantasy with Battlescrolls....I hate this. Fortunately the group I play with pretty much 40k with three rules:

1) no Escalation
2) no Stronghold
3) no more than two Armies rep'd (so you can go Taudar, but your not getting an inquisitor and 3 servo skulls with it too)

The thing that annoys me about allies, and I mentioned this when 6th 40k hit as well, is that, yes, they do allow you to create "fluffy" battles (i.e. that battle where it's Tau + IG vs Nids) but the people who would want to do this don't need a rule telling them what to do. They'd be creative and work it out themselves. Having ally-free rules doesn't stop people having such battles, but it does mean that people who just want a straight game can do so. Allies work in an expansion, but not in the main rules.

changing the complexity of the rules, they are just right now.

And 90% of what is going to happen in 9th edition.

 sing your life wrote:
changing the complexity of the rules, they are just right now.

And 90% of what is going to happen in 9th edition.

No idea what this post means...
Like the idea of double 1 miscasts returning but I personally hope power/dispel dice generation doesn't go back to the way it was in 6th/7th. Naturally it should be scaled to allow for larger battles, but the idea of the winds of magic being random and somewhat fickle is thematic and feels accurate.

Dumbing down everything.

As for allies, I do hope they put a bit more forethought into them then they did with 40k. I think the T&T rules for mercs was a good start for trying to balance the allies you could put in your army.

Anything that makes it harder to field big monsters, you don't see enough dragons and giants on the tables for fear of death by cannon too easily as it is. I like the suggestion of large targets ignoring multiple wounds.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Book reset.

This. I actually really like 8th edition, and don't want it to change, with an exception of an adjustment to the magic phase, because that seems to be the one area that 90% of players dislike. Personally, I think the magic phase is fine, though some of the spells are a bit OP.

Allies would be the single biggest turn off I think. My group is pretty opposed to them though, but we do venture out against randoms or tournaments every once and awhile.

Other rule tweaks we could get over, but Allies is a pretty large change.

Allied forces are allerdy in the book,
it's in the back next to scenarios.

(slightly different though)
(you can take 2 armies as one)
(as long as each is valid on it's own)
(minimunm core, no excesive rares, etc..)

 N810 wrote:
Allied forces are allerdy in the book,
it's in the back next to scenarios.

(slightly different though)
(you can take 2 armies as one)
(as long as each is valid on it's own)
(minimunm core, no excesive rares, etc..)

Yeah, but that's clearly meant for games with more than 2 players.

I just don't want allies to become the standard for a regular game between 2 people... like it has in 40k.

 Red Viper wrote:

 N810 wrote:
Allied forces are allerdy in the book,
it's in the back next to scenarios.

(slightly different though)
(you can take 2 armies as one)
(as long as each is valid on it's own)
(minimunm core, no excesive rares, etc..)

Yeah, but that's clearly meant for games with more than 2 players.

I just don't want allies to become the standard for a regular game between 2 people... like it has in 40k.

It'll only be problematic if they allow full interaction of rules & special abilities between allied models...

40k's problem is the whole Battle Brother's BS that allows for heinously broken combos, such as the infamous JetSeerstar led by The Baron.

Increasing the casualty rate, especially with shooting.

This seems weird, coming from a TK guy, but I feel the game is dangerously close to what turned me away from 40k.

I hate the idea that going first means you run the chance of blowing up half the other guys army. Already someone cam fast cav a Death/Slaneesh wizard and blow up my battle lines with the first turn.

An army with 300 points of cannons can take out 800-1000 points of monsters/characters in one turn.

Dwellers + IF can wipe out half a Str4 unit and possibly kill any characters living there.

I left 40k because I was tired of stuff getting killed in one turn and giving 1st turn the auto win. (Especially vs IG and Wolves.)

The only other thing that would ruin it is taking away player interaction on the other persons turn.

In 40k all you really do is make saves and pull models.

Charge reactions, active dispelling, use of items, and so on make fantasy the better game for me. I would hate to see a reduction of these things in any capacity.

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

You are the 1%.

Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard proposed in these forums… including Captain Solon's proposed idea of having an AP1 Heavy 25 setting for a plasma cannon.

alex87 wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

You are the 1%.

Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard proposed in these forums… including Captain Solon's proposed idea of having an AP1 Heavy 25 setting for a plasma cannon.

What, wanting the game to be cleaned up, improved and rebuilt is a ridiculous idea? Okay, stick with the edition thats seen more players leave than any other I've played through (3rd onwards), no bother to me.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

alex87 wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

You are the 1%.

Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard proposed in these forums… including Captain Solon's proposed idea of having an AP1 Heavy 25 setting for a plasma cannon.

What, wanting the game to be cleaned up, improved and rebuilt is a ridiculous idea? Okay, stick with the edition thats seen more players leave than any other I've played through (3rd onwards), no bother to me.

Your empirical evidence just seems to be at odds with 90% of the other people's empirical evidence. Everyone sees people having a blast with this edition and then there comes you, telling them that they are miserable, because you've seen miserable people.

If anything, I have seen a resurgence to fantasy this edition, though I credit that more to the abysmal 40k rules than anything else.

*edit* never mind. Same old circular conversations been played out by many people in many places.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
What, wanting the game to be cleaned up, improved and rebuilt is a ridiculous idea?

Cleaning something up and improving it is certainly not a ridiculous idea. But thats not what you said and wasn't what I called you out on. You haven't even offered any reasons as to why the game is broken and failing or what areas you'd improve. People who completely hate 8th edition and claim it to be broken and failing are in the vast minority. That is a fact, not my opinion.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

alex87 wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

You are the 1%.

Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard proposed in these forums… including Captain Solon's proposed idea of having an AP1 Heavy 25 setting for a plasma cannon.

What, wanting the game to be cleaned up, improved and rebuilt is a ridiculous idea? Okay, stick with the edition thats seen more players leave than any other I've played through (3rd onwards), no bother to me.

Yeah thats not the sentiment you get if you ask around maybe in your area thats true but around here fantasy is doing just fine and 8th is a good ruleset with some flaws. (steadfast, Super accurate cannons)

I'm actually in the boat of wanting to see more changes in order to re-kindle my interest in the game, as opposed to wanting it to remain as-is. I won't pretend that 7th edition didn't have plenty of issues, but I miss being able to outmaneuver, outflank, and crossfire enemies.

Give. Me. Back. My. Minimum. Four. To. A. Rank. (Grr)

And what reason would a real military force(who isn't made up of half ton ogres) have for making units only 4 guys wide?

Heck, 5 wide is really stretching the reality of what formation warfare would be like.

I want my Warhammer Fantasy Battles to look like battles.

Mreh. I still think that they are placeholders. Only heroes, monsters and maybe something like Ogres is remotely representative of the real size of units.

I mean 100 spearmen is a lot. But that would be a pretty tiny village skirmish. Not some keep invasion led by Lord Fartpants.

 Purifier wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

alex87 wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

You are the 1%.

Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard proposed in these forums… including Captain Solon's proposed idea of having an AP1 Heavy 25 setting for a plasma cannon.

What, wanting the game to be cleaned up, improved and rebuilt is a ridiculous idea? Okay, stick with the edition thats seen more players leave than any other I've played through (3rd onwards), no bother to me.

Your empirical evidence just seems to be at odds with 90% of the other people's empirical evidence. Everyone sees people having a blast with this edition and then there comes you, telling them that they are miserable, because you've seen miserable people.

If anything, I have seen a resurgence to fantasy this edition, though I credit that more to the abysmal 40k rules than anything else.

Well, I do know in Colorado Fantasy did pretty much die after 8th, and is only starting to come back as a result of all the stuff going on in 40k. Fantasy tournaments had their turnout drop to a 1/4 of what it was in 7th, and whole communities at LFGSs vanished, with only a few people keeping it up. I know in the case of my main store, we had a group of almost 15 people that had fantasy and would play regularly, that dropped to 2-3. The other two stores I will occasionally visit for games had communities of 8-10 fantasy players, one store had all it's players stop coming, another went down to only a couple people.

My store has finally gotten back up to about 8 fantasy players, and that is with 3 people only just now starting it up in the past month because they are frustrated with 40k.

So I wouldn't say "everyone" is having a blast, it very much varies by market. /shrug

 captain collius wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

alex87 wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
The continual persistence of 40k players stating that Warhammer Fantasy is a broken and failing edition. Play the damn game before commenting and ruining the game for perspective players before they can even get their foot in the door.

I played more fantasy than 40K and I'd say its broken and failing. What would ruin 9th edition is NOT getting a full wipe and reset.

You are the 1%.

Seriously, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard proposed in these forums… including Captain Solon's proposed idea of having an AP1 Heavy 25 setting for a plasma cannon.

What, wanting the game to be cleaned up, improved and rebuilt is a ridiculous idea? Okay, stick with the edition thats seen more players leave than any other I've played through (3rd onwards), no bother to me.

Yeah thats not the sentiment you get if you ask around maybe in your area thats true but around here fantasy is doing just fine and 8th is a good ruleset with some flaws. (steadfast, Super accurate cannons)

Over here it went from 20+ people attending monthly tournaments (all that could fit in the store), in 6th / 7th to said tournaments being cancelled due to not having a minimum amount of players (4).

It went from having 2 yearly national tournaments with 50+ people to 1 tournament with 12.

In the sales rankings for the US, it went from being the 2nd most sold miniature wargame down to 4th.

Yep, 8th edition sure is the bestest edition ever!

Tastes change. Emo music is popular, that doesn't mean it's any good.

I think that having such a high price point has always hurt WHFB and some games with smaller entry prices have taken advantage. That's something 9th should work on, being able to field smaller games even if they don't reprice the models.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
I actually don't like allies. I never liked the mercenary concept because it makes balance vastly different, lists just became TFG festivals where it's nothing but the cheesiest units from every army with no fluff. At least you can have a reason for an army to have all it's units: it's the army book. Why dwarfs have empire cannons and a hellblaster in addition to their own cannons is because [mumble mumble] friends and [mumble].

riburn3 wrote:
If there are any improvements they could make, it's allowing rear and flank charges to deny steadfast. I also think cavalry could be balanced and more viable by simply giving them impact hits. If 4 ogres going 6" can get up to 12 impact hits when charging, a blob of knights with lances charging in at full speed should do some impact hits as well.

Ogres are super expensive compared to most cavalry. It was easy to give MI/MC/MB Stomp and Monsters TStomp because they are expensive. I can't see giving the cavalry unit type Impact Hits because they cover too much. I could see giving them furious charge or similar.

I play Dwarfs and I have a friend that plays high elves that I will NEVER ally with purely for fluff reasons.

It doesn't matter.
I'm probably opting out of fantasy with the change to 9th anyway.

I only got back into it (after a 17 year hiatus) because of mantic making it possible to get an army up and running without the relentless gouging from GW. I did it so I would have something to play at my club (since we stopped playing 40k).

Now that we have embraced Distopian wars, X-wing and Infinity, it's less of an issue.

 CommanderRyalis wrote:

I play Dwarfs and I have a friend that plays high elves that I will NEVER ally with purely for fluff reasons.

Even though Dwarves and High Elves have re-opened trade paths and fought together since the war of the beard?

I'm not opposed to the idea of allies so long as does not become the norm. Also theres needs to be a fair and reasonable allies matrix. Unlike in 40k where you can ally things like Tau/Eldar and create an unstoppable list by combining two already strong codexes, yet Tyranids who are well and truly bottom tier have no access to allies.

alex87 wrote:

 CommanderRyalis wrote:

I play Dwarfs and I have a friend that plays high elves that I will NEVER ally with purely for fluff reasons.

Even though Dwarves and High Elves have re-opened trade paths and fought together since the war of the beard?

I'm not opposed to the idea of allies so long as does not become the norm. Also theres needs to be a fair and reasonable allies matrix. Unlike in 40k where you can ally things like Tau/Eldar and create an unstoppable list by combining two already strong codexes, yet Tyranids who are well and truly bottom tier have no access to allies.

The 40k allies problem is twofold;
1. The rules for 'Battle Brothers' are game breaking all by themselves... Giving ludicrous crap like IG blobs w/Lionhelm + ATSKNF, or else a Jetseer unit Hit-and-Run via the Baron on top of it's already awesome psychic potential, etc...

2. There's no percentage cap to keep things more honest.
The slot system sucks period. 40k should move back to percentage army building like Fantasy has and thus you'd able to add the combined safety net of the basic 25/25/25+/50/25 on top of ensuring that allies themselves are also no more than 25% of your pts total.
So even if it's possible to say ally a Slaan into an Alarielle or Empire Light Coven list for added stupidity, if your overall combined Lords total is still 25% max AND allies themselves are also 25% max, it'd be almost impossible to really game the system with the aim to simply break the game itself.

You could get fun/fluffy allies - say a Dwarf Engineer bringing his latest contraption + small bodyguard to show off to an Empire Elector Count, but no Empire Light Coven with enough Dwarf runes to also remove your opponent's entire Magic phase each turn.
Or else imagine a bunch of WoC chariots + Unkillable Nurgle Prince + double Chims + Skullcrushers backed up by a Dark Elf gunline & a Sorceress w/Light or Heavens Magic in a Warlock unit, or other stupid bull****.

If it worked that way, I certainly forsee a boost in sales of dwarves and empire.

Cannons for everyone!


**Edit**

I'm silly. Why not go demons for 165 and take the Khannons instead? Per GW on the scrolls you don't have to deal with army silliness that doesn't come from the base army.

(IE, when taking the VC battlescrolls, you never suffer from Generals of Undeath, unless your main force is VC.)

alex87 wrote:

 CommanderRyalis wrote:

I play Dwarfs and I have a friend that plays high elves that I will NEVER ally with purely for fluff reasons.

Even though Dwarves and High Elves have re-opened trade paths and fought together since the war of the beard?

I'm not opposed to the idea of allies so long as does not become the norm. Also theres needs to be a fair and reasonable allies matrix. Unlike in 40k where you can ally things like Tau/Eldar and create an unstoppable list by combining two already strong codexes, yet Tyranids who are well and truly bottom tier have no access to allies.

Nope I'm a particularly grudgeful dwarf

The relationships in Fantasy aren't as hardlined as in 40k.

There are less combinations that would be "impossible" in the fluff because there is much more grey area in this matter.

Only combos that cause trouble would be the following.

High Elves and O&G: Only possible exception is if Chaos is involved. Orcs just want a good fight and the Elves know Chaos is the bigger threat.

High Elves and Chaos: Possible explanation is the High Elves are secret cultists(remember the Pleasure Cults)

Lizardmen and Chaos: Flat out impossible.

Dark Elves and High Elves: You could possibly make the argument for a common chaos enemy but I'm going to need some serious convincing.

Dwarves and O&G: Not going to happen.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The relationships in Fantasy aren't as hardlined as in 40k.

There are less combinations that would be "impossible" in the fluff because there is much more grey area in this matter.

Only combos that cause trouble would be the following.

High Elves and O&G: Only possible exception is if Chaos is involved. Orcs just want a good fight and the Elves know Chaos is the bigger threat.

High Elves and Chaos: Possible explanation is the High Elves are secret cultists(remember the Pleasure Cults)

Lizardmen and Chaos: Flat out impossible.

Dark Elves and High Elves: You could possibly make the argument for a common chaos enemy but I'm going to need some serious convincing.

Dwarves and O&G: Not going to happen.

As long as Eltharion isn't involved I could imagine a particularly persuasive High Elf general talking an Orc warboss into a temporary alliance. Remember Orcs love the promise of a good fight, so if an Elf Prince said "Hey wanna help me take on this really powerful chaos lord/vampire count?" then the promise of a good fight would probably be enough for the warboss to agree. Same could be said of any race allying with Orcs really, except probably Dwarves.

You could to some extent argue that for Chaos/Lizardmen that a spawning pool has been corrupted? Really the only likely explanation I can think of there...

I would add that Beastmen and Empire/Brettonia is pretty damn unlikely. Beastmen/Wood Elves is going to also take a seriously good piece of fluff influenced creativity.

Vampires and Tomb Kings hate each other vehemently if I'm not mistaken?

Vamps and TK's are easy enough.

Vampirism spawned in Nehekhara, it's easiest enough to imagine a vampire raiding a Tomb for some minions or some sort of fluffery thereof.

Any combination is possible. It's the stuff of novels.

But 99% of the time gamers aren't writing novels, so you're just left looking at a table with a bunch of cheesy lameness.

9th edition for me would be very good if it stays the same as this edition except:

Make you take look out sir rolls vs all spells.
Make magic resist better.
Make cannons worse.
Remove purple sun as a spell.
Remake some of the magic item lists, just to shake things up a bit.

Experiment 626 wrote:
2. Keeping Initiative based 'test or die' mega spells, AND, allowing all wizards to roll up to 6 dice per casting attempt.
With roughly half the game's armies being low initiative, P.Sun & Pit are just an unfair kick in the groin since the likes of Elves & Warriors get to happily ignore those spells with their deathstars.
It's also infuriating at the moment to easily abuse the above by giving those mega spells to a Lv1 or Lv2 wizard who's only purpose is to 6-dice their casting attempts until they blow themselves up for a 'huge reward, no risk' style auto-win...

Experiment 626, I like you.

A thousand times this. I'm so tired of DE Sorceresses 6-dicing these spells and LOLing at the Miscast. Or at least make the Miscast table something to be rightly feared, instead of losing a paltry 4 models at the end of a gunline where the Sorceress/Mage is happily and safely bunkered and shrugging as they delete whole units and then pick the target for the next nuke-I mean Magic Phase Turn.

I think magic resist should be more of a "roll x to totally ignore the effects of this spell" instead of just a boost to a ward save...

Well, the problem is magic resist has already been priced into army books.

And it's dirt cheap.

They can substantially change stuff like weapons and spells and movement and every army will shift because they all use them but don't directly pay for them. But if they change special rules a lot, then models that were internally paying like 1 pt for magic resist are now way underpriced and OP. Because the models already have the special rules and already have fixed prices.

MR wouldn't be so bad if you could at least take saves against the spells that mattered.

It could stay as cheap as it is if all those nasty spells were changed to both lose single wounds only as well as allowing Ward saves(or possibly only Ward saves granted by Magic Resistance)

But that would make MR very very good and make those spells rather sucky.

Flesh Hounds would have a 2+ save vs. everything magic. Khorne troops would be everywhere.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Well, the problem is magic resist has already been priced into army books.
And it's dirt cheap.

Agreed 100%. You could possibly add something along the lines of units getting their magic resistance value added to dispel attempts directed at spells affecting that unit perhaps? It's a small buff, but considering they have the ward save potentiality helping them resist magic missiles and some direct damage spells it needn't be any bigger.

I don't think allies would break the game as much as they did for 40k if implemented into Fantasty. Mainly because in 40k half of the factions are imperial so it created an imbalance where Imperials can virtually ally with anybody, with only Tyranids getting left out. In Fantasy most armies have an obvious ally faction but also an obvious antithesis faction that they hate. I think there should also me a more obvious drawback to using combos of dubious allies. For example, Empire fighting alongside an allied force of Skaven, the Skaven should suffer a leadership penalty, to represent the fact that they are more likely to abandon an ally if they don't really like them. This would allow players to do fluffy lists but would penalise players combining for cheese.

alex87 wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
changing the complexity of the rules, they are just right now.

And 90% of what is going to happen in 9th edition.

No idea what this post means...
Like the idea of double 1 miscasts returning but I personally hope power/dispel dice generation doesn't go back to the way it was in 6th/7th. Naturally it should be scaled to allow for larger battles, but the idea of the winds of magic being random and somewhat fickle is thematic and feels accurate.

I was trying to say I oppose what looks like GW's plan to simplify the game [one book for each group of armies, for example]

 sing your life wrote:

I was trying to say I oppose what looks like GW's plan to simplify the game [one book for each group of armies, for example

Again, I'm not sure what you mean by this. One book for each group of armies? Its been a long time since every army didn't have their own army book?

alex87 wrote:

Again, I'm not sure what you mean by this. One book for each group of armies? Its been a long time since every army didn't have their own army book?

Yes, but a lot of rumours / rumourmongering / spitballing about the next edition has included the notion of a 'ravening hordes' style combined army book sort of thing. Either one book with updated lists, or multiple books that combine similar armies together.


Re: the magic resistance thing... it wouldn't surprise me at all if they turned it into something that either aided dispel attempts, or instead borrowed the "Deny the Witch" mechanic from 40k and tied it into that.

I shudder to think what that will do to the price of the rulebook/starter set. If this does happen then the persistent rumours about a few races being killed off are probably likely to eventuate.

 Micky wrote:

alex87 wrote:

Again, I'm not sure what you mean by this. One book for each group of armies? Its been a long time since every army didn't have their own army book?

Yes, but a lot of rumours / rumourmongering / spitballing about the next edition has included the notion of a 'ravening hordes' style combined army book sort of thing. Either one book with updated lists, or multiple books that combine similar armies together.


Re: the magic resistance thing... it wouldn't surprise me at all if they turned it into something that either aided dispel attempts, or instead borrowed the "Deny the Witch" mechanic from 40k and tied it into that.

It's funny how this would be the exact opposite of the 40k situation at the moment, with ridiculous amounts of new books, pamphlets and stand-alone characters that are being released, and yet it sounds like an almost equally poor idea.

It seems really unlikely they would do that. What they could always do is move some of the more unpopular armies to be online only. But there's very little reason to totally get rid of them.

At the GW retail stores, everything takes up space and thus it has to pull its own weight in terms of paying for the lease and salaries.

Having less products is pretty much the opposite of what any manufacturer wants to do.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
It seems really unlikely they would do that. What they could always do is move some of the more unpopular armies to be online only. But there's very little reason to totally get rid of them.

At the GW retail stores, everything takes up space and thus it has to pull its own weight in terms of paying for the lease and salaries.

Having less products is pretty much the opposite of what any manufacturer wants to do.

Some armies might have an easier time pulling their own weight if they weren't mostly metal models.

Get it? It's a valid point both metaphorically and concretely. Since plastics weigh less, but are also more popular. I'm very clever.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
But that would make MR very very good and make those spells rather sucky.

Flesh Hounds would have a 2+ save vs. everything magic. Khorne troops would be everywhere.

I don't know about that.

With what I said, you wouldn't get normal Ward saves. Just what the MR gives you. So MR3 on a 5+ ward would only be a 4+ save against the spell. Not 2+.

 Purifier wrote:

Some armies might have an easier time pulling their own weight if they weren't mostly metal models.

I don't know why some are still metal. I don't know all the details of their contracts and the sculpts. I doubt it's just as easy as flipping a switch and making everything plastic or they would do so.


If MR replaced ward instead of increasing it, it would be rather sucky and you'd never see it on heroes unless they already had it somehow.

Know it's been said a lot by now, but I agree totally with the allies nonsense, its actually killed 40k for me, that and the ridiculous fluff in the past few years.

I would also hate to see an ally mechanic but i doubt that would happen because of the expansion that was recently released.

Whats more likely to happen that would ruin the game for me is magic or shooting getting massive buffs. The emphasis needs to be on the units and characters doing the fighting.

BS shooting is pretty terrible now.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
BS shooting is pretty terrible now.

This is true and i can see now that i did a terrible job of wording my point. Whilst there is no problem with shooting being improved i would hate to see it become more like 40k. Where guns and who you choose to shoot matter more than unit placement and maneuvering.

 Niiai wrote:
9th edition for me would be very good if it stays the same as this edition except:

Make you take look out sir rolls vs all spells.
Make magic resist better.
Make cannons worse.
Remove purple sun as a spell.
Remake some of the magic item lists, just to shake things up a bit.

Some spells would be rather silly if you could take a look out sir, how would you even justify it when some things hit the mind?

But as a whole, all of this.

There needs to be a LOT more magic banners. Even if they aren't uber. They have the potential to add a lot of strategic value because they affect so many units. And some (most) armies don't have good banner choices in their own books. Or any.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
BS shooting is pretty terrible now.

Yeah, I would actually remove the long range modifier for some of the weapons.

There would be a special rule called "long range" which swaps the modifiers for long and short range around, to represent how difficult it is to use a weapon that is meant for long range combat at short range.

Examples of weapons that would be affected :

Long Bows

Jezzails

Bolt Throwers

Long Rifles (or whatever that special Empire gun is called)

If they could keep the diversity in army book magic items too that would be great. Around 8 is way too few and a lot of the time they are crap or overpointed.

^This. It's one of the few things i miss about the old 7th edition army books. If they could give us better balanced/pointed magic items that would go a long way in my book.

Army books hang around for many years/cycles. They get grossly out of balance with one another and the BRB. It only makes sense they moved to a BRB-centric magic and item and special rule system.

The old HE and Lizardman and WoC and (currently) Skaven magic items were crazy broken. Because the game had changed around them.

Likewise the old Ogre and TK pseudo-magic didn't fit with the rest of the game. If you standardize it is easier to keep the whole game evolving without breaking.

Everyone wants to be unique snowflakes in their army but the problem is at version 1.01 you're not a snowflake anymore you're a rusty cog grinding away in the machine.

What would ruin 9th for me? An upscale of the points again..

As far as allies go just bring back Dogs of War...

I would like to see a return to guess range and no pre-measure.

 DarkWind wrote:
As far as allies go just bring back Dogs of War...

I loved Dogs of War, but they came right before I stopped playing last time. Does anyone know the reason they were removed?

 DarkWind wrote:
I would like to see a return to guess range and no pre-measure.

Oh yeah, time to learn how many inches your elbow->wrist and wrist->each finger distance is again.
... no, let's not go back to that.

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I would like to see a return to guess range and no pre-measure.

Oh yeah, time to learn how many inches your elbow->wrist and wrist->each finger distance is again.
... no, let's not go back to that.

The main reason I would like to go back to this is I feel it's a bit more realistic. Now there are those who would try to "cheat" the system using body parts to measure however this wasn't always an exact science. As to where now you can measure make calculations for die rolls and more often then not always hit your target or close combat with them.

I would more or less like to see this for Charges and War Machines only. Have a rule that no pre-measurement of any sort (including body parts) is allowed when declaring charges or firing war machines.

 DarkWind wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I would like to see a return to guess range and no pre-measure.

Oh yeah, time to learn how many inches your elbow->wrist and wrist->each finger distance is again.
... no, let's not go back to that.

The main reason I would like to go back to this is I feel it's a bit more realistic. Now there are those who would try to "cheat" the system using body parts to measure however this wasn't always an exact science. As to where now you can measure make calculations for die rolls and more often then not always hit your target or close combat with them.

I would more or less like to see this for Charges and War Machines only. Have a rule that no pre-measurement of any sort (including body parts) is allowed when declaring charges or firing war machines.

It wasn't allowed back then either, but so easy to game. In your movement phase you point at something or whatever. It also meant that people that were good at eyeballing a distance had a great advantage, which I honestly don't see as a skill that should give you an advantage in a tactical game. It's more like something a good carpenter should have. I was quite good at it, but I had a friend that could hit his first cannonball perfectly every game. I know he didn't cheat. We tested his skill so many times just moving some pieces around and asking him how far it was between the two units. He would sometimes get it wrong by an inch, but just as often hit it dead on. he didn't really need to play using tactics. His cannons were much better than everyone else's.

I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

 DarkWind wrote:
I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

But not of the general. Trust your subordinates. You can't run from cannon to cannon, judging their distances for them. You have more important duties.

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

But not of the general. Trust your subordinates. You can't run from cannon to cannon, judging their distances for them. You have more important duties.

Well said

 DukeRustfield wrote:
There needs to be a LOT more magic banners. Even if they aren't uber. They have the potential to add a lot of strategic value because they affect so many units. And some (most) armies don't have good banner choices in their own books. Or any.

Agreed, many times over.

Beyond that though, Army book magic items being reduced was a horrid decision.

They are a great way to personalize models.
I have variously modeled Tomb Kings and Tomb Princes with different gear, but only 2 banners matter.

Honestly this is similar to the issue I have with random abilities too.
I cannot customize my wizard for the spells unless it is a Loremaster or I have dozens.
Not even touching the asinine issue of Warlord traits being random in 40k.
That sort of silliness would be horrid. Khalida may give +1WS instead. . .yea, that's why she brought all those archers.

 kirsanth wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
There needs to be a LOT more magic banners. Even if they aren't uber. They have the potential to add a lot of strategic value because they affect so many units. And some (most) armies don't have good banner choices in their own books. Or any.

Agreed, many times over.

Beyond that though, Army book magic items being reduced was a horrid decision.

They are a great way to personalize models.
I have variously modeled Tomb Kings and Tomb Princes with different gear, but only 2 banners matter.

Honestly this is similar to the issue I have with random abilities too.
I cannot customize my wizard for the spells unless it is a Loremaster or I have dozens.
Not even touching the asinine issue of Warlord traits being random in 40k.
That sort of silliness would be horrid. Khalida may give +1WS instead. . .yea, that's why she brought all those archers.

Special characters in the new edition codices have specific non-random Warlord traits. It's if you roll with a generic warlord (or old codex) that you get the random ones.
But yeah, the random ones do tend to come out with crap, so if you're lucky enough to get something good, you're gonna have an advantage that game, because the other person likely won't have anything decent.
A very common house rule is to roll on all three tables, then pick one of the three results you got. In my group, if you have your own codex table, you get that and get to choose 2 more of the generic tables before the roll, so everyone has 3 results to choose from.

I understand and used Khalida because I literally built my TK army around her.

I built my Tyranids around my Hive Tyrant. Guess how that works?

edit to add:
A common house rule is not common, nor a rule.

Allies like in 40k that has ruined that game.
I cant really think of any major improvements in 8th they could make to make it better except allowing MR saves for characteristic tests.

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

But not of the general. Trust your subordinates. You can't run from cannon to cannon, judging their distances for them. You have more important duties.

By the time cannons were widespread, they knew how to measure and use them pretty well. It was known for all ranged weapons through the extremely simple method of: practice. If they fired a cannon 100 times they knew where it would go pretty accurately. It's not like they grabbed random people and said, "hey, do something with that big metal tube over there."

That said, there are limitations to the accuracy of the weapons. They're round balls in non-rifled barrels. They most definitely go side-to-side.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

But not of the general. Trust your subordinates. You can't run from cannon to cannon, judging their distances for them. You have more important duties.

By the time cannons were widespread, they knew how to measure and use them pretty well. It was known for all ranged weapons through the extremely simple method of: practice. If they fired a cannon 100 times they knew where it would go pretty accurately. It's not like they grabbed random people and said, "hey, do something with that big metal tube over there."

That said, there are limitations to the accuracy of the weapons. They're round balls in non-rifled barrels. They most definitely go side-to-side.

I agree with everyone but the issue is the game, not why the rules relate to the real world.

Cannons are too good at sniping and too good for killing things that everyone wants to survive.
Bad game design.

Huge hits but inaccurate would be fine but really, how many cannon shots have people actually witnesses missing?
Maybe it is just be, but it seems damn rare for the results of the shot.

Note that I play TK with a CoS in damn near every game and think it is a better WM in a general sense.
The specifics break the bank.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Army books hang around for many years/cycles. They get grossly out of balance with one another and the BRB. It only makes sense they moved to a BRB-centric magic and item and special rule system.

The old HE and Lizardman and WoC and (currently) Skaven magic items were crazy broken. Because the game had changed around them.

Likewise the old Ogre and TK pseudo-magic didn't fit with the rest of the game. If you standardize it is easier to keep the whole game evolving without breaking.

Everyone wants to be unique snowflakes in their army but the problem is at version 1.01 you're not a snowflake anymore you're a rusty cog grinding away in the machine.

Whilst your absolutely right that those magic items became overpowered through time and rule changes the same can occur with any rule in an army book really. My main complaint isn't so much the lack of magic items now so much as a lack of good ones. If there is going to only be a few then i want them all to be useful ( the same issue is in the new nid dex as well actually). Take ogres for example out of there big names section i really only see the value in deathcheater, the +1 toughness and maybe 1 or 2 others in specific situations. The rest suck. The items fare much better but neither of the swords is worth looking at twice and the rest range from yay to meh rather than being consistently good, as they should be.

The older books had an excuse to be OP as they had just changed with age but even one new item being useless is pretty inexcusable as there are less to check and they fit in with the newest rule set.

I can totally see the need for most magic items to be in the BRB so that they can be updated through edition changes....

...so how about, just, giving us more? Say double the number of items in each category?

 Micky wrote:
I can totally see the need for most magic items to be in the BRB so that they can be updated through edition changes....

...so how about, just, giving us more? Say double the number of items in each category?

There's already quite a lot though.

My issue is that they're mostly very normal. +1S/A, +2S/A. 6+ Ward, 5+ Ward. I know it's best to save the exciting items for the books, but it'd be nice to have some variety in the rulebook items.

If all the items in the army books WERE exciting I'd see your point. When 80% of them are TRASH, I want to see some exciting magic items in the BRB.

Again, the big thing I want to see is banners.

But the problem with going BRB-centric is they have the difficult task of adding stuff everyone can use. You give Fencer's Blades to some guys and it's okay, you give it to some other builds and it's super uber. Because the armies are so different unless a magic item is just some boring +1 this or +1 that, they have totally different net values.

Crown of Command doesn't do much at all for some armies, but to others it's massive.

The simple solution is to make them all boring and limited in number (kind of current situation). That way it's easier to play test them all and keep a handle on them.

I agree that it seems like a huge chunk of the magic items in army books are almost like special characters. More fluff than actual use.

If allies are limited and done well. I bet it could be done well. Maybe they will bring back a 25% max of army is allies, maybe 25% max of army is monsters.

I think about what I would love to add to my TK, and a lvl 2 beasts with a small bunker(s4 shooting would be a solid fit) 19 Handgunners, champion with Long Rifle(can single target smiting on non Nehekara undead.)

I really like 8th ed over all. Steadfast needs adjusted, test or die needs to go to test or take a wound. Cannons vs monsters needs to be toned down to d3 wounds.

More magic items, especially banners, I'd like some diversity. I take none in my TK(granted no unit I roll with is eligible) One with my DoC (Flaming)

More useful magic items would be good.

As it is, each book tends to have 12ish magic items, of which 8-10 are super bad. Only the main rule book items see any common use.


Some sort of customizable magic item generator would be interesting.

Something like limit of 1 custom item per army(so no spamming a bunch of cheap identical items)

 Grey Templar wrote:
More useful magic items would be good.

As it is, each book tends to have 12ish magic items, of which 8-10 are super bad. Only the main rule book items see any common use.


Some sort of customizable magic item generator would be interesting.

Something like limit of 1 custom item per army(so no spamming a bunch of cheap identical items)

Although it would be cool for other armies to have access to this, that would be taking away the Dwarf's schtick of runic items.
And no, we ain't sharin'.